If one had to select one sector of the economy that has continued to improve and expand despite the cyclical ups and downs of the macro economy, the Internet would be the obvious pick. Access and speed continue to arc upward on an exponential path, as Nick Gillespie of Reason TV shows in this short video. The wide-open access allows for competition without pre-emption of other competitors, unlike the broadcast radio and television markets; in other words, one website doesn’t preclude another from operating. Consumers have choice in providers, either by hardwire or wireless. If the Internet continues to succeed and to grow and competition continues to multiply in service and content, why do we need a bureaucracy designed 60 years before the birth of the Internet to suddenly start regulating it? Nick gives us three reasons why the FCC needs to keep its hands off of the Internet:

For more on this, please see my post from yesterday about the FCC’s efforts to make the Internet a “public utility” such as local telephone service. Only a government that fears open-source communication would see the Internet as a failing enterprise in need of top-down government control.